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Kiss 101.7 (WJKS-FM) is ground central to four states and specifically targets adults 18 through 44. Kiss 101.7 programs a full-service Urban Contemporary format, which doesn't segregate the music the listeners want to hear; Urban Contemporary formats give a wide variety of the music that is very special to the listeners and to the station itself.
We play various artists from the early 80s to today's hits; some examples include: Monica, Fantasia, Melanie Fiona, Mtume, Hi-Five, Cameo, Michael Jackson and many more. Kiss 101.7 encourages participation in station activities and responses to promotions.
KISS 101.7 is owned and operated by Q.C. Communications Inc, along with studios and offices located at the One Customs House which is at 704 King Street, Suite 604 Wilmington, Delaware 19801.
Mc Gavern Guild is our National Sales Representative, who helps out with the station's financing.
 
Tony Quartarone is the Owner and General Manager of Q.C. Communications Inc.
Q.C. Communications was purchased and licensed by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on July 1, 1997. Tony Quartarone's broadcasting career began at New York’s WRKS (KISS-FM), where he held a number of programming positions. In 1985, Tony Q. was named Billboard Program Director of the Year and was also awarded the same; he was honored by Gavin Magazine. Tony Q. subsequently joined Power 99 (WUSL-FM) in Philadelphia, as Program Director in 1986, and guided Power 99 to the number one music station in the market.
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Ever since he was a 21-year-old program director at WRKS 98.7 FM in New York, Tony Quartarone has been a worrier. The day he moved into his new office—having spent the previous three years working at the station for free while going to Elizabeth Seton College—the president of the company said to him: “You’re a liability. I don’t want you in this position. If you should have two down books in a row”—referring to the station’s ratings—“I want you to clear your desk before I come down and fire you.”
The words have been echoing in Quartarone’s head ever since, so the 47-year-old tenses up every time a ratings book comes out. But he’s proven he’s no liability. As a volunteer at WRKS, he suggested the station switch its format to urban contemporary and rename itself Kiss 98.7. Within six months, Kiss was the number one station in its market. Later, Quartarone would give WUSL 98.9 FM in Philly a similar makeover, then join the station as program director in 1986. He went to number one there, too.
In July 1997, Quartarone purchased WJKS Kiss 101.7 FM. He’d already fulfilled his lifelong dream of owning his own station—he previously bought WRKE 101.7 FM in Ocean City, Md., and was running both as the “Twin FMs”—but the logistics of having two stations at opposite ends soon created a nightmare. “One of them had to go,” Quartarone says. “So I flipped a coin.” WJKS won, and Quartarone concentrated on Wilmington full-time.
Recently, Out & About spent a rainy Friday afternoon in Kiss FM’s studios on King Street. With the station’s annual Spring Jam concert at the Grand Opera House on June 5 just weeks away, not to mention the next ratings book on the horizon, Tony Q couldn’t help but worry. But that didn’t stop him from talking about radio’s mysterious ways: what it’s done for him, and, just as important, what he’s done for it.
I read that you got into radio after being in an accident.
I did. Radio is something I’ve wanted to do since I was 14. Prior to that, I was a juvenile delinquent. I was a tough kid. I grew up in the South Bronx, playing hooky, riding the subway by myself. I got left back in school three times. When I was 14, I had a job selling newspapers. One day, I got offered $5 to take a ride with one of the drivers to pick up carrier money. Coming back, we were in a massive car accident. We went over a stone bridge, into the water. I went through the windshield—split my head, punctured lungs, punctured heart. I was in the hospital for months. While I was there, my father brought in a radio and said, “Listen to the music, and relax.”
I started watching radio—not listening to it, watching it. Theater of the mind. And I started asking questions: Why do certain records repeat more than others? How could they start a record on a dime when it took me a whole minute to line up the needle at home? I put together the formula in my mind and started practicing. I would say what the jocks would say before they would. I bought two turntables and a record, make-believing like I was on the radio.
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That time period when you first got started—the late ’70s and early ’80s—were you aware of how hip-hop was changing radio?
| Hip-hop was just another name for rap. People interpret urban radio to mean black radio. Which is wrong. Urban radio means city. Urban contemporary means city radio today. Back then, when I was working for corporate radio, there was no segregation of music like there is today. Urban contemporary radio was the premier format to break artists. They broke Madonna. Urban contemporary radio broke Wham. They broke Cyndi Lauper. It wasn’t about color or classification. If it sounded good to the program director’s ear, he played it. I used to play Joan Jett. That’s how urban radio should be today. |
Why isn’t it?
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Radio is segregated. Our government [as part of the Telecommunications Act of 1996] allowed conglomerates to own as many stations as they want. It used to be you couldn’t own more than 12 stations across the country. Now you can own 3,000 stations, for example, and five or six of them can be in the same market. Today, when a record comes out, one station may choose not to play it because their sister station is playing it, and they can’t compete against each other.
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Doesn’t that pigeonhole stations? It seems that if the iPod and technology have taught us anything, it’s that people don’t listen to music like that.
| Urban radio never segregated the music. People would come to these stations to hear new music. Today, that’s not the case. When you talk about iPods and the internet, things like that have been going on for years. Before the iPod, people would make copies of cassettes. I don’t think iPods have affected radio, and I’ll tell you why. People have a favorite radio station, no matter what. There’s something about a station that makes people feel like they’re one-on-one. |
Let’s talk about the Spring Jam. How have you been able to land some of these big-name artists—Ghostface, T-Pain, Ray J—and convince them to play Delaware?
| [Pauses] I think it’s called the “Thank you, Tony.” Because we break new music on a weekly basis. We played T-Pain before anybody else. We go out [on a limb] for new music. The conglomerates aren’t doing that. I want to show you something. (Quartarone pulls up BDSradio.com, Billboard magazine’s website for monitoring airplay. He shows the airplay activity of competing stations in Kiss’ market—which songs are getting how many spins. Lil Wayne’s “Lollipop,” for example, has been getting more than 100 spins a week, or nearly once an hour, on stations with similar formats in Philadelphia. “No variety—none. That drives the audience nuts,” Quartarone says. Kiss, by contrast, plays the record about 50 times a week. “That’s respectable. That’s the way it should be.”) |
How far in advance are you doing your programming?
| Everything’s pre-programmed in my office. On a Friday, I’ll do Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. But during the week, I go one day at a time. That gives me room to add in something new. I don’t have to get approval from corporate to play it. |
What are the challenges radio is facing today?
| I think what’s upsetting about radio is that as long as there are conglomerates and segregation in the music, a radio station no longer has its own stationality, where it plays music that sounds good to a program director. The program director is dictated what he’s got to play by corporate America. That’s the downfall: Radio’s not localized anymore. A program director may go out and hear a hot record in a nightclub, but he can’t go to a station and say, “This is a killer record.” He can’t just add it. He has to get permission from corporate, and most of the time, corporate says, “It ain’t happening.” Maybe if I was a conglomerate and had all these shareholders to answer to, I’d want to know what’s on my stations at all times, too. |
You’ve been a part of radio through the ’70s, ’80s, ’90s, and now 2000s. Can radio still break records like it used to?
| We have a Power New category we use. These are brand-new records we feel are the hottest records out. We listen to our audience everyday—we write down their names and what songs they request. There’s a record—“I Got a Thang for You” by Trina—it’s our fourth most-requested record at the station. No one in Philly is playing it. No one in New York is playing it. We’re playing it 35 times a week. That’s just one example. Ray J—we added his current single back in January, and it’s now the number-one song in the country. So can radio still break records? We do it every week. |
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